Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/34

 thus compelled to acknowledge that it is the poet's privilege to shed a charm

Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty;" —we are made to feel the truth of L. E. L.'s own beautiful language, and its exquisite classical allusions:— It is the minstrel's part to fling  Around the present's common cope The solemn hues on memory's wing     The spiritual light of hope.

The scene that to a careless eye Seems nothing but itself to be, Hath charmed earth and haunted sky Soon as a minstrel's eye can see. ****   **** Without such lovely light the while, Dark, silent, strange, all things would be, And Ithaca were but an isle Unknown upon a nameless sea;

But now a thousand years come back, The gift of one immortal line,— Each with new splendour on its track As stars upon the midnight shine. ****   **** I ask of every pictured scene, What human hearts have beaten there,— What sorrow on their soil has been,— What hope has blighted human care?" Drawing-room Scrap Book, 1837. Yes; and the lessons deduced from every pictured scene are not merely adventitious; they appeal to the general principles of human nature. This is one of the most prominent characteristics of L. E. L.’s